EDHEC-Risk Institute warns European Commission of consequences of Tobin Tax

Opalesque Industry Update - In an open letter to European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso on January 30, 2013, Professor Noël Amenc, Director of EDHEC-Risk Institute and Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School, has reiterated EDHEC-Risk Institute’s opposition to a ‘Tobin’ or financial transactions tax (FTT). Research findings from EDHEC-Risk Institute and other academic institutions show that the theoretical arguments in support of the FTT as a measure to reduce volatility are, at best, mixed; the empirical evidence, on the other hand, indicates that a FTT has either no effect on volatility or it actually increases volatility; and, introducing an FTT faces serious implementation challenges.

In the light of the ongoing discussions on broad implementation of an FTT within the eurozone, EDHEC-Risk Institute points out that reducing the convenience of transactions by increasing taxes:

Makes optimal management of long-term investments, which should be dynamic and not static, more costly. This has been shown from more than thirty years of research results, notably those of Robert Merton, Nobel Prize in Economics laureate in 1997, and in the work on the optimal management of risk budgets that EDHEC-Risk Institute has been conducting in recent years as part of its research programme on asset-liability management.

Increases the liquidity premium on stocks.

Makes markets less efficient and restricts price discovery phenomena.

Ultimately, all these elements would lead to an increase in the risk premium required by investors, including long-term investors, and to a rise in the cost of capital, with a consequential negative impact on economic growth in Europe.

Before seeking to impose a tax on European stocks, EDHEC-Risk Institute recommends that the Commission draw lessons from the recent failed introduction of the FTT in France. The taxed French stocks have recorded an average fall of 15% in volume compared to stocks that were not concerned. “Substitution effects” have occurred between French and foreign stocks from the same sector. Some investors have decided to modify their equity portfolio by underweighting French stocks in favour of non-taxed European firms. This substitution effect will not fail to have consequences on the price of French firms and their capacity to raise capital in order to invest and create employment.

The frequently-mentioned argument that substitution effects would not occur in the case of a tax that is expanded to a wider geographical zone and, as proposed by the Commission, based not only on the location of the transaction or the headquarters of the financial intermediary but also on the primary listing or the nationality of the company, seems to EDHEC-Risk Institute to be irrelevant. It would simply lead to European stocks being disadvantaged in comparison with other geographical regions.